By @InfantryDort on X, active duty Army Major
Tortured Warrior XXXVII: David Hackworth
The Torment
David Hackworth lied about his age to join the U.S. Merchant Marine at 14, and transferred to the Army at fifteen, chasing war in Korea when most boys were still in school. He carried the weight of battle early, a teenage Soldier scarred by death and fire. In Vietnam, he rose through the ranks, becoming the most decorated officer of his generation. But the torment was not just the enemy. It was the system. He watched poor strategy bleed his men, watched careerists climb while warriors fell. He carried the agony of leading from the front while those above him wrote policies that wasted lives.
The Breaking Point
Hackworth did what few dared — he spoke out. In 1971, on national television, he condemned the Vietnam War as unwinnable and accused senior leaders of betraying their Soldiers. The system struck back. Branded a traitor to the institution he had given his life to, he was forced into exile. His uniform stripped away, his career ended, he fled to Australia. The most decorated Soldier of his era was treated as if he had committed treason — for telling the truth.
The Transcendence
But exile did not silence him. Hackworth turned his scars into a weapon, writing, teaching, and speaking on behalf of the warrior. His book About Face became a gospel for Soldiers tired of lies and hypocrisy. He returned to America as a journalist, holding leaders accountable during Desert Storm, Somalia, and beyond. He never again wore the uniform, but he wore the truth like armor. Time vindicated him — the same institution that had cast him aside came to revere his insights.
The tortured warrior is often broken not by the enemy, but by the betrayal of his own. David Hackworth carried scars from Korea and Vietnam, but the deepest wound came from being cast out for honesty. Yet he turned torment into testimony, exile into legacy, and proved that even when the Army rejects its own, the warrior’s voice can still echo across generations.
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Tortured Warrior XXXVIII: Joe Kent @joekent16jan19
The Torment
Joe Kent spent his youth in the shadows, a Special Forces Green Beret moving through the long wars of Iraq and Afghanistan. He carried the burden of missions no one spoke of, of brothers lost to firefights and explosions that barely made the news. Yet his deepest torment was not in the desert, but in 2019, when his wife — Navy Senior Chief and cryptologist Shannon Kent — was killed by a suicide bomber in Syria. The Army taught him to endure pain, but nothing prepared him for the hollow ache of explaining to his children why their mother was never coming home.
The Breaking Point
Kent could have gone quiet, like so many warriors who slip into anonymity after the wars are done with them. Instead, he spoke — about endless deployments, about the human cost of forever wars, about the leaders who never paid the price for decisions made in comfort while Soldiers bled. For this, he was attacked. Political enemies smeared him, the media painted him as extreme, and his faith in the system was tested again and again. The same establishment that sent his family into war now sought to silence him when he spoke of its failures.
The Transcendence
But Joe Kent did not break. He turned his torment into testimony, his loss into mission. He carried his story into the public square, not to ask for pity but to demand accountability. He became a voice for Gold Star families, for veterans abandoned by their leaders, for the men and women still bearing scars from wars fought without victory. Cast out of the comfortable circle of approval, he stands as a reminder that true warriors never really leave the fight.
The tortured warrior is not only scarred by the enemies he faced overseas. He is scarred by the loss of those he loves, and by the indifference of those who sent them to their deaths. Joe Kent carries those scars openly, and in doing so, proves that even the deepest torment can be reforged into a purpose greater than one man’s life.
He currently serves as Director of the United States National Counterterrorism Center.
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Tortured Warrior XXXIX: John Boyd
The Torment
John Boyd was not built for quiet conformity. A fighter pilot who came of age in the Korean War era, he was nicknamed “Forty Second Boyd” for a standing bet: he could defeat any opponent in simulated combat in under a minute. But his torment wasn’t in the cockpit — it was in the system. He saw an Air Force obsessed with prestige projects and careerism, blind to the reality of war. He had a gift for seeing what others missed, but that gift made him dangerous. In an institution that rewards silence, Boyd refused to be silent.
The Breaking Point
Boyd created the Energy-Maneuverability theory, revolutionizing aircraft design. It shaped fighters like the F-16 and F/A-18, but earning credit meant clashing with generals and contractors. He called out corruption in weapons procurement, exposing billions wasted on aircraft that could never win a dogfight. For this, he was sidelined, passed over for promotion, and nearly broken by endless investigations and vendettas. His greatest creation — the OODA Loop, the cycle of Observe–Orient–Decide–Act — reshaped the way war is thought about, from cockpit to battlefield to boardroom. Yet in his own lifetime, the institution he served treated him as a pariah.
The Transcendence
Boyd never rose beyond Colonel. He retired without fanfare, without the stars his mind had earned, but his ideas became immortal. The OODA Loop outlived him, studied by Marines, entrepreneurs, and strategists across the globe. His disciples — the “Acolytes of Boyd” — carried his fire into future generations of reformers. He showed that one man with truth and courage could change the face of warfare, even if the system he gave his life to rejected him.
The tortured warrior is not always measured by rank or medals. Sometimes he is defined by scars inflicted by the very system he tried to save. John Boyd should have been a general. Instead, he became something greater: a prophet of war, proof that ideas can outlast armies, and that one man’s torment can forge a legacy that endures forever.
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